Green Valley Center project Denied - far stricter regulatory climate

Outgoing El Dorado Hills Planning Commissioner Lou Rain voiced the loudest criticism of developer Tom Winn’s proposed Green Valley Commercial Center, located west of Francisco Drive at Green Valley Road. Proposed tenants include a big-box drug store and fast food restaurant with a drive-thru.

The project took heavy flak from neighbors, who wrote letters, signed petitions and lined up to oppose it at the commission’s October and December meetings, claiming its anchor tenant, a big box drug store, was redundant and that traffic coming to and from the center would clog local transportation arteries.

Clogged arteries also came up in the discussion of the fast food outlet, which would generate 80 percent of the center’s traffic, according to the project’s traffic study. But the loudest fast food complaints were environmental: smell, litter, noise and light, all of which residents said would leak into the adjacent Francisco Oaks subdivision.

Rain addressed Winn and project spokesman George Carpenter with characteristic candor and respect: “You seem like good guys … very professional … but you have a difficult property here, and the experts you hired did a bad job for you … and for the residents of El Dorado Hills.”

He cited the 6.8-acre parcel’s access constraints and impact on local residents, reminding ...

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